Conavirus infection rates in the United States are significantly higher among children of minority race and those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, according to a new study.
The study examined 1,000 child patients tested between March 21 and April 28 in Washington DC. Only 7.3% of White children tested positive for coronavirus, in contrast to 30% of Black children and 46.4% of Hispanic children, the study found.
Three times as many Black children reported known exposure to the virus as White children, the researchers reported in the journal Pediatrics on Wednesday.
Socioeconomic background: The test site collected basic demographic information for all patients; the research team then used survey data to estimate family income based on home addresses.
Of the 1,000 people tested, 207 were positive for coronavirus. About 9.7% of those in the highest income quartile were infected, while 37.7% in the lowest quartile tested positive, the team found.
Racial breakdown: Of the patients tested, about one third were Black and about a quarter were Hispanic.
The team found that the inequities existed even after they adjusted for age, sex and median family income.
What this means: Inequalities could be in part due to limited access to health care and resources, as well as bias and discrimination, but the researchers said that further research is needed to understand the cause.
“Understanding and addressing the root causes of these disparities are needed to mitigate the spread of infection,” the team wrote.
These findings may even underestimate the inequities in coronavirus rates, because a physician referral was needed for testing. Minority and lower socioeconomic populations have less access to primary care physicians, meaning the inequities could be even larger in reality than observable in this study.
Because this study focused on one site, the results may not be generalizable to other geographic locations.